Surgical site infections: prevention and treatment

Resource impact statement

No significant resource impact is anticipated

In 2017, the NICE surveillance team reviewed the existing NICE guideline on surgical site infections: prevention and treatment, published in 2008, and identified new evidence on nasal decolonisation, skin antiseptics, the use of topical antibiotics before wound closure, and closure methods. This prompted a partial update of the existing guideline to review the new evidence.

We do not expect this update to the guideline to have a significant impact on resources; that is:

• the resource impact of implementing any single guideline recommendation will be less than £1 million per year in England (or £1,800 per 100,000 population) and
• the resource impact of implementing the whole guideline in England will be less than £5 million per year (or £9,100 per 100,000 population).

Where clinical practice changes as a result of this update to the previous NICE guideline, there will not be a significant change in resource use.

This is because any cost is likely to be offset by savings and benefits. The unit cost for the interventions is small and surgical site infections that are prevented as a result of the interventions can be costly to treat.

Surgical services are commissioned by NHS England and clinical commissioning groups. Providers are NHS hospital trusts.